Of Hearts and Cookies
by NorwegianSpiritNinja
Summary: Ada and Gil try to make Valentine's Day extra special for Oz. Lots of fluffiness.
1. Chapter 1

The fresh snow lay like a thick woolen blanket on the ground, almost blinding white. Now, in the early hours of the morning, the sun smiled down on the scene before it. Its throne no longer shielded from view by the snow-bearing clouds, it cast a warm cozy glow over the mansion below, rays of light slowly easing their way in through the windows. One room in particular had a vantage point in the matter of being first to greet the day.

The sunlight slowly crept along the floor, up the walls, and toward the bed of a sleeping child. As if on cue she stirred as soon as the first ray of light kissed her forehead. Blinking groggily and sitting up in bed, she yawned widely. She looked out the window and smiled at the white, cottony fluff that she discovered had come to rest over the entire sprawling estate.

Quietly, so as not to disturb anyone, she got out of bed and made her way to the door. After checking in both directions to be sure that no one else was up and about, she tiptoed down to the servant's wing of the mansion. Here, she found her desired companion, sleeping soundly wrapped in several layers of blankets. She stifled her giggled as he snored, and walked over to his bedside to prod him awake.

"Gil!"

No reply. A sharper poke.

"Gil!"

"Hm."

"It's morning, Gil. Get up!"

"Urgh."

"Gil!"

Gilbert found himself being rather rudely awoken by Ada's sharp poking. He blinked several times in order to see her more clearly before asking, "What time is it?"

"Time to get up!" Ada said, renewed urgency in her six-year-old voice. "Don't you know what day it is?"

"Um…" Gil, eyes still heavy with sleep, struggled to remember. "Tuesday?"

"Not just Tuesday," Ada said, green eyes sparkling. "It's Valentine's Day, Gil! Happy Valentine's Day!"

Gil stared at her for a moment.

"Please do not be offended, Ada-sama, but you woke me up this early just for _that_?" he asked incredulously. However, instead of looking angered by this Ada merely looked sheepish as she shook her head.

"Uh-uh," she replied. "I need you to help me." Here a small pout crossed her face. "And I told you not to say sama! I don't care if you're Onii-chan's servant, you're my friend, and friends aren't more important then other friends, and sama is only used for important people!" she finished in one large breath.

"I'm sorry, Ada-sa—I mean, Ada. I'm just so used to saying it," the raven-haired boy replied, blushing. "But, anyways, what do you need help with?"

"Making cookies for Onii-chan!"

"But I don't know how to make cookies," Gil protested feebly, but Ada was already dragging him toward the door.

"It's okay," she whispered happily as she led him out of his room. "We can learn together!"

And Gil, being the slightly hetare person he was, allowed Ada to drag him along to the kitchen. Little did the two children know what they were getting themselves into.


	2. Chapter 2

"Gil! What's this?"

"What's what?"

"This! I think it's sugar, but it says conferrer's—no, um confineter's, um…"

"It's _confectioner's_ sugar. You know the powdery white sugar." Gil sighed. They had only been in the kitchen for five minutes, and already they were having trouble. They had yet to pick out a cookie recipe, and as neither of them had ever made cookies before, there was much debate about which one to choose. Gil was hoping Ada wouldn't pick one that was too hard. Half of the recipes they had looked at so far had contained ingredients that neither Gil nor Ada had ever heard of.

"Gil?" Ada again.

Gil managed to overcome the urge to give an exasperated sigh as he replied, "Yes, Ada?"

"Can we make cookies that we can put pink frosting on?" she asked, looking up at him with her wide, innocent eyes.

Ah. Of course. Something pink. How could he have forgotten?

"I-I don't really know how to make frosting—" he began, but Ada interrupted him.

"Don't worry," she chirped. "You can figure out how, just like we're doing with the cookies!"

So it would be him figuring it out. That should have been obvious to him right from the start. But how could he blame her? He was seven years older than her, and she looked up to him for guidance. It was really kind of sweet, actually. And he couldn't just expect a six-year-old to figure out a cookie recipe on her own.

"Okay," he said after a long moment of silence. "Then why don't we make sugar cookies? When Ms. Kates makes them she usually frosts them."

Ada looked positively delighted.

"Oh yay!" she squealed, bouncing up and down a little. "Those are my favorite!"

Gil couldn't help but smile, even though he would have probably gotten the same reaction if he had chosen another recipe.

"Okay," he said skimming the cookbook that lay open in front of him. "This says we need butter, sugar, two eggs, vanilla extract, flour, baking powder, and salt."

Ada made a face. "Ick. Who puts salt in cookies?"

"It's just a little bit of salt," Gil explained. "You won't even know it's there when you eat them."

"Oh. Okay," said Ada. "How do we get the ingredients? I can't even remember the whole list!"

"Well," said Gil. "To start, the butter and eggs are in the refrigerator. They aren't too hard to reach. Do you want to get those?"

Ada, eager to help, nodded enthusiastically. "Uh-huh!"

She retrieved the eggs and the butter and brought them back to Gil, looking pleased with herself. "What's next?"

"The other ingredients are harder to reach," Gil told her. When Ada looked disappointed, he added, "But if you want to be a big help you could read the list while I get everything else."

Ada's face brightened immediately. "I can do that!"

"Good," said Gil as he hoisted himself onto the counter. "What's first?" he called down.

"Um, let's see," Ada's brow furrowed in concentration as she tried to decipher the list of ingredients. "Um, sugar!"

"Alright," said Gil as he carefully set the sugar bowl next to him. "Keep going."

"Van—Vanla…" Ada frowned as she tried to figure out the word.

"Vanilla extract," Gil told her as he retrieved said item from its shelf.

"I knew that!" Ada stuck her tongue out a Gil before continuing, "There's flour, and powder, and salt."

"Baking powder?" Gil asked.

"Yeah."

"Okay then." Gil put all the ingredients on the counter, and then began climbing down, but as he did, his foot accidentally clipped the salt, which fell and promptly spilled all over the floor.

"Whoopsie," said Ada.

Gil moaned. "Now what do we do?"

"We could leave the salt out of the cookies," Ada suggested hopefully. Gil shook his head.

"We need the salt," he groaned. "Otherwise the recipe won't work."

"Oh," Ada's face fell, but brightened again a second later. "I know! We have salt on the table when we eat. We could go get that!"

Gil didn't look entirely convinced. "The quickest way to get there is through the parlor, and we're not allowed to go there," he pointed out. "And if we didn't go that way, we would have to sneak past Oz's room and he might wake up."

Ada looked at him innocently. "No one would know if we went through the parlor," she reasoned. "And Onii-chan is sleeping late because he doesn't have lessons today or the rest of the week. It will only take a minute!" she added when Gil still looked doubtful.

"Alright," he finally conceded. "But it better not take any more than a minute!"

Ada smiled in reply and said, "Hurry up! We need to have enough time left to finish the cookies!"


	3. Chapter 3

Ada and Gil crept stealthily through the parlor like a pair of ninjas. Cookie ninjas that is. They made their way through hallway after hallway, but the dining room was nowhere to be found. They stopped and looked around them. The only thing they could see was hallway, hallway, hallway, with a few doors here and there and a portrait of some old duke with a wart on his nose. Gil's stomach sank. They were completely, totally, definitely lost.

"Ada?" he asked faintly.

"Huh?"

"Do you know where we are?"

Ada wracked her small brain trying desperately to conjure up an image similar to the one that lay before her. Unfortunately, she found lots of images; the hallway before looked like this. And the one before that. And the one before that. She turned to Gil and shook her head.

"Nope. I've never been to the dining room through the parlor before."

Gil facepalmed.

"Why didn't you say so before?" he moaned in exasperation. "We might've taken the other route! I thought you knew where you were going! How do you even know if we can get to the dining room through the parlor!"

Ada looked up at him innocently.

"Onii-chan and I race there when we go to dinner. I can't go through the parlor, but he can, and he always beats me."

Leave it to Oz to convince Ada of that. He was just faster than her! That was all! There weren't any secret passages through the parlor or anything like that. Gil fought to keep calm as he said, "Let's keep going this way. We'll figure out where we are sooner or later."

"Okay!" Ada said loudly.

"Shh! People are sleeping!"

"Sorry," whispered Ada. She was quiet for a moment before she asked, "Gil?"

"Hm?"

"Can we play pretend like we're explorers or something? Or like _Holy Knight_?

Gil blinked.

"Uh, sure, I guess."

"Good," said Ada. "I wanna be Princess Claire! You be Edwin!"

Gil was taken aback. He had no experience being the "Master" figure. Should he act like Oz? His thoughts were interrupted however, as Ada ran tiptoe down the hallway.

"Come rescue me from Count Zorin!" she whispered and dashed off.

Gil prayed his footsteps weren't loud enough to wake anyone as he raced after Ada. They ran around for a bit before Ada stopped and said in surprise, "Hey! It's your room!" And sure enough it was. The door was still ajar from when they had left.

"Well," Gil panted as he skidded to a halt in front of his door, "I think I know my way from here."

"Me too," Ada agreed. She poked him playfully. "Come on, Edwin! Count Zorin is taking me to his evil bad guy tower!"

Gil, already winded from their previous run, nearly fell over as he tried to keep up with Ada, who seemed to possess the metabolism of a hummingbird. Together, they raced silently through the hallways, although this time they didn't get lost. Gil was quite relieved when they finally reached the dining room.

"The salt's up there on the table!" Thank you, Captain Obvious. Nonetheless, Gil leaned over the table to retrieve the salt. As soon as the crystal saltshaker was in his possession they were off again, heading back toward the kitchen.

"Remember," said Gil. "We have to bring this back when we're done with it."

Ada rolled her eyes—a very good impression of her older brother. "Duh!"

"Alright," said Gil, putting his hands up in and "I get it" kind of position. "Just checking."

Ada nodded impatiently, bouncing slightly as she walked next to Gil.

"Come on!" she pleaded. "Can't we please run? It's not that far."

"You can run, but I'm not going to," replied Gil. He held up the saltshaker. "We are not dropping this one."

Ada rolled her eyes again. "You're the one who dropped it." But she kept pace with him until they got to the kitchen. Once there, Ada ran over to a cabinet and produced a large silver bowl and some measuring cups and spoons. She brought it all over to Gil, and then raced to the counter to fetch the ingredients and a large wooden spoon. She placed the ingredients in front of her companion, keeping the large spoon tightly in her hand.

"You measure," she commanded. "I get to stir."


	4. Chapter 4

Two broken eggs and a bout of overenthusiastic stirring later, Gil and Ada finally found themselves with a large bowl of sugar cookie dough. Gil exhaled before turning back to the recipe book.

"Let's see," he muttered skimming the page. "It says here we have to chill the dough before we roll it out."

Ada's mouth turned down in a pout as she whined, "I don't wanna wait! Why can't we just cut the cookies now?"

"The dough is too sticky," Gil informed her.

"I bet I could still do it!"

"The book says the cookies wouldn't hold their shape. We have to let them chill!" Gil countered Ada's remark, earning him a deeper frown. He chose to ignore it and went about putting the dough in the refrigerator. "Besides," he added, "we still have to clean up the mess we made." He gestured to the kitchen, which was covered in flour and flecks of dough. He was pretty sure Ms. Kates wouldn't be too happy about the eggs on the floor and the large pile of spilled salt. Obviously, they had to clean the whole kitchen, but how would they ever complete such a Herculean task?"

"Let's make it a contest," suggested Gil. "We'll see who can clean up more and whoever does the better job will get a prize."

Ada's eyes narrowed in suspicion as she regarded Gil.

"What sort of prize?" she demanded.

"A good prize," said Gil, who had yet to think of an actual prize.

"I wanna know now! I won't help until you tell me!"

"Okay, okay, hang on a second." Gil thought for a moment before saying, "Whoever wins gets to taste test the cookies and the frosting."

Ada's eyes lit up at the prospect of Gil's proposed prize.

"You're on!" she challenged before racing over to the sink and grabbing a sponge. Before Gil had taken even one step toward the sink, Ada had already scrubbed half of the counter clean in a mercurial whirlwind of excitement.

"Eager to win, are you?" Gil mused.

"Don't think you can trick me into failure with your idle chatter, knave," Ada said importantly without looking up from her cleaning. "Be you monster or villain, you shall not wrest that prize which is within my grasp away from me. It may come tantalizing close to your fingertips, but you shall never receive it! 'Tis rightfully mine!"

Gil tried hard not to crack up, but between Ada's serious face and hearing her talk like someone from _Holy Knight_, he found it quite impossible. He had never known her to be laconic, but this was too much!

"What's so funny?" Ada demanded as Gil clutched the counter for support while he laughed hysterically.

"N-nothing," he managed to choke out between fits of giggles. "J-just something I thought of just now."

Still giggling, he grabbed a sponge and began rubbing it in little circles on a small patch of counter. Ada regarded him disapprovingly for a moment before shrugging and continuing with her relentless cleaning. Within half an hour the whole kitchen was clean. Ada was the obvious winner of the contest, as she had done almost all of the work. Gil was still standing in the same spot, wiping his little corner of the counter. He hiccupped and giggled to himself, sounding as though he had recently been to a particularly bacchanalian party. Ada stood in front of him, hands on her hips.

"Well? Can we put the cookies in the oven?"

It took Gil another minute to master himself, but at last he replied, "We need to roll out the dough and cut the cookies out first."

Ada groaned with impatience. "Let's just make one GINORMOUS cookie so we can bake it quicker!" She ran and grabbed the bowl before Gil could react and dumped the contents on a cookie tray, spreading them with her hands. Gil stood there with his mouth partially open, unsure of what to do. Ada carefully separated a little piece of dough and put it to the side of the larger mass before turning to Gil.

"See?" Ada chirped. "Now you can put it in the oven."

And, as he didn't know what else to do, that's just what Gil did. Soon, the ambrosial smell of giant sugar cookie filled the kitchen.

"Mmm!" Ada hummed contentedly as she sniffed the air. "That smells good! Now let's make the frosting."

Once again, Gil was called on to gather ingredients while Ada stirred.

"Don't forget the food coloring, Gil!" Ada reminded.

As the two of them were stirring the frosting, Gil noticed an odd smell over top the pleasant smell of the cookie. It smelled familiar, but he couldn't quite remember why. Ten minutes later, as he and Ada both coughed as a black cloud filled the room, he realized what the smell was. Smoke!

"The cookie!" he gasped.


	5. Chapter 5

**Aha! It's finally finished! Well, here's the conclusion to the "Valentine's Day" fic, even though it's the end of March****...Anyhows! A special thanks to li ross. You have no idea how incredibly special you made me feel by following this story. And this is how I thank you! Procrastination! *shot* Well, sorry for the long wait. Please enjoy!**

* * *

><p>Ada and Gil coughed violently, making their way across the kitchen as smoke poured out of the oven in a steady stream. Gil reached up to turn the knob on the oven, trying not to inhale as Ada sobbed behind him.<p>

"It's ruined!" she wailed. "Onii-chan's cookie is ruined, and now I don't have anything to give him!" And she broke into a fresh wave of tears.

Gil, eyes streaming just as much as Ada's—from the smoke, not sorrow—peered into the oven, a sickly feeling in his stomach as he steeled himself for the sight, trying not to go into a state of panic. But what was this! There was no charred lump of cookie dough, no blackened ruined sweet. Instead, there on the cookie tray, sat Ada's cookie, beautiful and golden, looking as beautiful and Olympian as a titanic sugar cookie could possibly look. And on the bottom was…

"A pastry!" Gil sighed, partially relieved, partially not. He had forgotten all about the pastry he had dropped when he had helped Ms. Kates cook the previous night. Of course, it was a good thing that the cookies hadn't been burned. On the other hand, he had yet another thing to clean. To him, this seemed like a bit of a Pyrrhic victory.

Ada dried her tears on the back of her hand.

"I-it's okay?" she sniffled hopefully.

"Yep," Gil told her. "In fact," he added, smiling, "it's perfect!"

Ada's expression changed from one of sadness to one of absolute rapture so fast Gil did a double take.

"Take it out of the oven!" Ada urged him. "Hurry! Hurry, or it won't be perfect anymore."

Gil, employing a couple of oven mitts, removed the massive cookie from the oven and set it on the counter along with the smaller cookie that Ada had made as her reward. He let her frost both of them.

"I suppose was all worth it," he thought, watching with a smile as Ada happily devoured her prize. Then he decided that maybe it was time to do some actual cleaning.

That night, there was a Lucullan feast. Since it was a special occasion, Gil had been invited, along with Oz's mentor, and Liam, a family friend, to dine with the family. He couldn't remember a time he had ever eaten so much. The table, decorated with exotic flora, had been laden with roast duck and chicken and heaping piles of steaming mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and all sorts of other delicious foods. The whole setting, with the food and friends and low candlelight, was absolutely Elysian in Gil's opinion. After dinner, there was dessert and wine, the latter being served only to the adults. Oz's uncle, Oscar, a rather flamboyant and jovial fellow, had been the one to break open the bottle.

"Ah! Nectar of the gods!" he exclaimed as he took a large sip from his glass.

As the evening continued, Gil sat back and watched the activities, stomach full of food and eyelids drooping. He watched as Ada presented her brother with the cookie they had made in the morning, and thought it looked nice with its bright pink base frosting and scrawling frosting script, which proclaimed "ONII-CHAN" in large letters.

"Well," said Oz after he had kissed younger sister on the cheek, "I was wondering what smelled so good this morning." He shot Gil a hermetic smile over Ada's head, and Gil got the feeling that Oz had known exactly what they'd been up to. Gil turned his gaze back to Oscar who, with the aid of the wine, was being quite the thespian, portraying all sorts of characters, from procrustean Draconian dictators to the most humble myrmidons to fantasy creatures. As time wore on, the roles became more and more chimerical, until Oscar hit the height of absurdity when he pretended to be a narcissistic, selfish unicorn that fended off enemies who wished to use his magic mirror by shooting iridescent bubbles from his horn. It was at this point that Liam took the wine away and things began to wind down.

Gil, though drowsy, was still filled with an elated feeling from the party when he went to bed that night. As he drifted off to sleep, eyes still filled with the wonderful images of the day, he thought, "What fun this was! Perhaps we should do such things more often."


End file.
